Based on a bestselling book of the same name by Kate Summerscale, ITV1’s The Suspicions Of Mr Whicher recounts the true story of a tragic murder in a Victorian household in Wiltshire.
When the Kent family awake one morning to find their four year old son Savill is missing from his cot, they set about searching the entire grounds, only to make a horrifying discovery. Savill has been murdered and dumped unceremoniously in an outhouse privy. The shocking nature of the crime led to what became one of the first true tabloid scandals in Britain; an early precursor to the Madeline McCann saga, if you will. Given the high-profile nature of the case, the Home Secretary urges Scotland Yard to send its very best man to investigate and bring a hasty conclusion to the case.
Enter Paddy Considine (The Bourne Ultimatum, 24 Hour Party People) as the titular Inspector Whicher, a man who is supremely confident in his abilities and who is adamant that he’s never convicted anyone who didn’t deserve it. When he arrives in the country village of Rode, his investigation pits him against an incompetent local police department, a group of ever-present journalists eager to press him into revealing a scoop, and a Victorian house that, of course, holds more secrets and scandal than it would outwardly appear.
Suspicions begins as a classic whodunit; was it the maid whom people suspect of sleeping with man of the house Samuel Kent? The jealous daughter who may-or-may-not be insane? Or perhaps even Mr Kent himself?
Fairly conventional, then, but when Whicher eventually hones in on his suspect, the focus switches somewhat from ‘whodunit?’ to ‘didtheydunit?’ So confident is Whicher in his convictions, that when the evidence begins to dissipate around him, he must search inwards and face the possibility that perhaps for once his suspicions were wrong…
Paddy Considine gives a great performance as Whicher; a man slowly unravelling as he becomes ever more desperate to prove his suspicions correct. Equally good is Peter Capaldi (Torchwood, The Thick Of It) as the tortured man of the house, haunted by what has happened under his roof, while Alexandra Roach (last seen as a decomposing chav zombie in Being Human) as the daughter whose questionable mental state makes her a deliberately tricky character to read.
Less successful is Tom Georgeson as local lawman Superintendant Foley, one of the obstacles in the way of Whicher’s investigation, who is written to be so wilfully ignorant and inept that he becomes impossible to take seriously.
Suspicions doesn’t do anything particularly novel, but what it does do, it does extremely well. The notion of there being a hitherto concealed decay and darkness behind the doors of outwardly gentile English mansions is not a new one, as viewers of Downton Abbey will attest, but this is shot with such sumptuous cinematography and measured style by cinematographer Matt Grey and director James Hawes that it instantly raises itself above many of its contemporaries. There’s perhaps an over-reliance on voice-overs recounting earlier lines of dialogue, a device used to highlight Whicher’s thought processes while pondering the case (i.e. when lines from the previous scene are repeated in the next, it begins to feel a little insulting to the audience), though the swirling, violin-led score is very evocative.
For fans of murder mysteries and period pieces alike, this is a strong Bank Holiday offering, presenting a beautiful (and surprisingly convincing) recreation of the Victorian era, as well as a fascinating central mystery, all anchored by a very accomplished performance from Paddy Considine. In fact, Suspicions is so well made that you might well find yourself wishing it was a full series, rather than just a one-off.
Airs at 9pm on Monday 25th April 2011 on ITV1.